[img]http://awcungeneva.files./2015/02/danfodio.jpg[/img]

Uthman Dan Fodio was a jihadist equally as brutal as Shekau of Boko Haram if not more brutal since he was able by means of a religious war to propel his minority Fulani people as rulers of the newly established Islamic fundamentalist State of Northern Nigeria.

Uthman utilized treachery from the useful idiot class of the Hausa elite desperate for power, brute violence from his fulani ilk burdened by heavy taxation from the Hausa kingdom and the wretched poverty class of the Hausa kingdom who gave him their full support. He preached purity and a pious just society for all under the banner of islam only for him to seize power for himself and his fulani ilk.

The main reoccurring decimal between Shekau and Dan Fodio is that they both desired to establish an Islamic State and had no qualms using violence means to arrive at their islamic utopia.

The very fabric of today's northern Nigeria with the emirate system owes a lot to Uthman dan Fodio.

Boko Haram are just bent on relieving and carrying on from where Dan Fodio stopped.

So Buhari was right to state that "a war against boko haram is a fight against the north"

For the current leader of Boko Haram, Abubaka Shekau, as well as for others in the movement, Usman dan Fodio and his 1804-1808 jihad is the model to be followed. Although radically different in many ways, Boko Haram is part of the long shadow of Usman dan Fodio and the creation of the Sokoto Caliphate, the largest state in West Africa in the nineteenth century.

The background to the jihad was a crisis in the Hausa states and Islamic leaders’ resort to Islam to reform society. During the eighteenth century, Hausa society witnessed conflicts between one state and another, between Muslims and non-Muslims, between rich and poor. The states were heterogeneous and highly developed with established kingships, talented Islamic scholars and jurists. Succession disputes were endemic while ambition for political domination was common. Gofir state in the northwest emerged as a dominant power, but not without costly and ruthless wars. Merchants and kings grew wealthy, and their ostentatious living displeased the poor and devout Muslims. Methods of wealth accumulation involved corruption and unjust treatment of the poor. Taxes and levies could be excessive, demand for free labor ruinous, enslavement was common and conscription for military service was indiscriminate. The practice of Islam was not always strict: many were Muslims only in name, traditional religion was synthesized with Islam in a way that displeased devout preachers and only a small minority committed itself to spreading the religion”. (1)

Dan Fodio (1754-1817) was a Peul (plu. Fulani) and thus a member of a minority within the largely Hausa area. However, the Fulani are found throughout West Africa. Prior to 1800, there had been a gradual influx of Fulani into northern Nigeria, a migration which had spread over several centuries and which involved people who were ethnically and linguistically distinct from the Hausa. During the earlier migratory phases, they were largely pastoral herdsmen but increasingly they settled in Hausa towns.

As an educated Peul, dan Fodio felt excluded from political power as did other Fulani. The jihad and the distribution of power that followed led to the Sokoto Caliphate − a sort of unified theocracy. Old Hausa dynasties were replaced by new local leaders, mainly Fulani emirs. The caliphate was headed by a sultan, based in Sokoto, while local emirates were governed by an emir. The appointment of each emir had to be ratified by the sultan. Thus was created a Fulani-Hausa political area with elements still in place today.

Dan Fodio, often referred to as Shehu, was an educated preacher who gathered around him students who became the core of his jihad army. Dan Fodio knew the history of Islam and wanted to recreate the Muslim community of the time of the first four Caliphs, thought of as the ‘Golden Age of Islam’. He thus broke down the existing Hausa state system of some 15 separate states into a loosely organized Fulani-Hausa confederation of some 30 emirates with loyalty beyond the clan and the traditional ruler within the embrace of a common religion.

Two features tended to characterize the emirate system. First, there was virtually no distinction between religious and political authority. The emir possessed both. Second, politics was conducted in an essentially despotic fashion. The common man was subservient to the emir and was dependent on his benevolence. The Fulani jihad fell short of establishing the just Islamic theocracy it had purported to create. Many saw the jihad as a road to power rather than to the purity of religious practice.

Boko Haram has kept the use of flags and flag bearers from Dan Fodio’s jihad as well as the arbitrary killing and indiscriminate marauding.

BlowBack:

He preached purity and a pious just society for all under the banner of islam only for him to seize power for himself and his fulani ilk.

sounds eerily familiar

He preached purity and a pious just society for all under the banner of islam only for him to seize power for himself and his fulani ilk.

Buhari is a reincarnation of Uthman dan Fodio